1998-08-12 04:00:00 PDT VALLEJO -- In a legal victory cheered by advocates for the needy, a federal court has barred raids similar to one last year at a Vallejo apartment complex that made a target of welfare recipients.

State officials, Solano County and the city of Vallejo have agreed to pay undisclosed financial damages to county residents on public assistance as part of a settlement of a class-action lawsuit stemming from the March 13, 1997, raid on the Marina Vista Apartments.

"It's a tremendous victory for welfare recipients in that it recognizes and reinforces their rights to privacy under the Constitution," said attorney Jodie Berger of San Francisco's Employment Law Center.

And the settlement, which applies specifically to Solano County but could become binding case law throughout the state, limits how police and welfare investigators share information.

"It means that law enforcement will no longer participate when welfare investigators are conducting an investigation," said plaintiffs' attorney Roxane Polidora. "The police were involved in this case to try to link being poor to criminal conduct."

Vallejo police had requested the assistance of probation and parole officers as well as medical and welfare fraud investigators in an attempt to rid the apartment complex of suspects responsible for a variety of crimes and threatening other tenants.

During the raid, 10 people were arrested, only three of them for welfare fraud. The operation was dubbed S.A.F.E. for Specialized Agency Fraud Enforcement. A spokeswoman for the American Civil Liberties Union said the controversial program was to be expanded to other counties.

"This was the beginning of a tactic that was going to be used throughout the state," Polidora said, noting that officers did not have the required probable cause to conduct the searches or warrants identifying specific welfare fraud suspects.

And the early-morning raid was inherently coercive to bewildered residents who decided to open their doors to officers and welfare investigators, all of whom wore jackets bearing the word "Police," the ACLU argued.

As a result of the settlement, any home visits by state or county investigators must now be conducted between 7:30 a.m. and 8 p.m.

Vallejo, Solano County and the state will split financial damages, which will benefit not only Marina Vista residents but the county's estimated 17,000 welfare recipients as well, attorneys said.

Ironically, although the settlement will involve public funds, lawyers for the plaintiffs and the ACLU said they could not disclose any details about the financial award because of a confidentiality agreement requested by the defendants.

Terry Pogue, an attorney who represented Vallejo, called the settlement "fair to both sides" and said the agreement does not include an admission of guilt. Pogue also declined to reveal the terms of the financial settlement.